Proof
by ficdirectory
Summary: Part 12 of the Paris series.  Written for crimeland's Fiction Challenge.  Prompt from the CM Prompt Meme.  Episode Tag for 7x06 "Epilogue".  Reid and Prentiss have a conversation on the plane about the afterlife and Prentiss coding in the ambulance.


Emily scans the jet on the flight home from California. She has developed this habit since going into hiding. Some might call it Post-Traumatic Stress. She calls it survival. She calls it instinct.

Derek has his headphones on, near the back of the plane. Rossi has isolated himself and is pretending to sleep so that no one will ask him what's wrong. Hotch, Reid and JJ are playing some kind of card game. Emily breathes a sigh of relief knowing everyone is in her line of sight, and safe.

Reid lays his cards facedown on the table. He gets up, sending a tight smile to Hotch and JJ. "No, it's fine. You guys play," he says, and makes his way toward her.

For reasons she doesn't know, Emily's heartbeat picks up speed. She is nervous. Probably because Reid has been a bit of a loose canon since she's returned. She's never sure if he's more apt to snap at her, or want to have a heart to heart. She watches as he takes the seat across from her.

"How come you didn't tell anyone?" Reid asks, the faintest echoes of betrayal in his tone.

"Tell anyone…" she trails off, wracking her brain until she remembers their last, real exchange. He saw the afterlife. She didn't. His exact words had been, "You actually _died_?" But there hadn't been time for follow up then. She supposes she should have expected this, but it catches her off guard, just the same.

Emily sighs. "For the same reason _you_ didn't tell anyone…" she says softly. "It's not something that comes up in conversation, and even if it did, I don't want to relive the worst moment of my life."

"What was it like?" he asks, his voice soft and curious. Then, he shakes his head. "Right. Sorry. Never mind…" he says, getting up.

She catches his hand before he can go far. She hesitates for a second. Then speaks. "First, I was alive and in incredible pain. And then…everything just went dark and very silent… It wasn't what you described at all. I wish it had been different. I hope it _will be _different someday. Just like the unsub, I want to know if it has the potential to change. I hope there's something more…"

"And I hope there isn't…" Reid admits. "As much as it bothers me not to be able to make sense of it…I can't help but hope the end is just like what I saw and felt. That light and warmth were such a welcome relief from everything I was enduring…"

Emily shrugs, trying to smile.

"For the longest time…I could never reconcile the existence of God…" Reid says, his voice just above a whisper. "Now, I can't deny… I mean, call it fate or spirituality, a higher power…but I believe in _something_…Do you?"

"Honestly, I don't know…" Emily admits. "I used to…I'd like to…I just don't think I do… Like you said… Knowing what I know…it's just difficult to reconcile that now. If when you die, you simply cease to be, I can't very well embrace what I know not to be true."

"Maybe that's not the point…" Reid ventures.

Emily cocks her head, listening.

"Maybe, the light and the warmth, the cold and the dark… Maybe there's no significance there…"

"Thanks, Reid, that's reassuring…" Emily laughs, sarcasm masking her confusion.

"No, hear me out. Maybe the point _isn't _what we saw or felt afterward, but that we're both here now. The afterlife loses something of its appeal for me, if I know that someone I respect didn't experience that same peace. So maybe, we stop putting so much stock into what happens in the last moments of our lives and instead, focus on what we do while we're here."

"You mean…am I being a warm light or a cold darkness?" she quips.

"I mean, we both have a second chance. So, let's use it. Let's not take it for granted. That way, no matter what happens at the end, we can look back without regrets," Reid says simply.

"That was very deep, Dr. Reid," Emily says, smiling.

"It's fact," he maintains. "And a little philosophy…"

"It's difficult," she replies, offering tiny truths like playing cards.

"It is," he echoes.

"…Not believing when I need to…knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that there's nothing…after this…" Emily manages.

"Do you believe in yourself?" he asks, matter-of-fact.

Emily presses her lips together. "It's not really the same thing as contemplating the afterlife…"

Reid is smiling slightly, as if at a memory. "I said much the same to Garcia last year," he admits.

"You talked to Garcia about God?" Emily asks.

He nods. "I asked her what she believed in and she listed all these things. Then she said she forgot one. She told me she believed in _me_. That we make our own way in the world and what we practice, we become."

"That's easy for her to say…" the words are out of Emily's mouth before she can stop them. Before she can remember that Garcia herself had come back from the edge. Instead of light or dark…instead of cold or warmth…Garcia had seen her family. She had seen love.

Reid is quiet, listening.

"I want proof," she says softly, ashamed.

"Then look around…" Reid urges, his eyes bright with encouragement.

Because she has nothing else to lose, Emily does. She takes in the members of her team, present or not. They have already established that her own presence here required some kind of cosmic intercession, even if Emily didn't see it. Reid certainly was close to death and came back. Garcia was shot by a man she barely knew. The bullet had torn through her chest, a centimeter away from her heart. She studies the rest of her team. Hotch, who by all accounts should not be alive today either. He was stabbed multiple times, later lost his ex wife, and nearly lost his child. Still, he's here, playing a hand of poker with JJ, as if nothing is amiss. JJ, Rossi and Derek fall into a slightly different category, but a miraculous one all the same. She knows without them telling her that they have experienced a horrible loss. Whether innocence or family or something deeper. Yet they are all here.

Even past members… Gideon, who could have died in a stand off, where six fellow agents didn't make it out. And Emily had been there when Sarah was killed. Elle, who was shot in her home by an unsub on a case. Emily has heard stories of how Elle had gone rogue. She had been there when Gideon simply disappeared, leaving his gun and credentials behind. Even Ashley…it's saying something that she even survived her childhood, with a father like that…

"I guess you're right," she says, shrugging.

"Of course, I'm right," Reid replies, and the corner of his mouth tips in a smile.

It's true, Emily supposes, glancing out the window at the setting sun.

There is proof of something beyond her understanding everywhere she looks. Maybe she isn't supposed to understand it. Maybe, it's like Reid says. Maybe, she is simply supposed to make the most of the time she's been given.

Maybe, life is the miracle, not what happens after it's over.


End file.
